992 4 JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
worms, they are delicious—yes, emphatically delicious— 
for the smoking over some fragrant cedar-like wood lends 
a flavour of its own to the solid white flesh. Sometimes, 
too, the natives seem to soak them in brine before 
submitting them to the smoking process, and this gives 
an agreeable taste of well-cured haddock to the already 
appetizing fish. The natives generally fish with a kind 
of seine of different shapes. Sometimes there is a net 
like a huge butterfly net, only with a more oblong 
aperture and a very stout handle, but this is only used 
for small fry, while monster fish are usually speared. 
The Ba-teke, who do a little amateur fishing im a lazy 
way, row out to one of the many floating islets of grass 
and water-plants, round which the fishes congregate, and, 
poising well their little lances, harpoon the fish as they 
nibble at the roots just below the surface, gobbling the © 
larvee and water insects that cling to them. The little 
Ba-teke boys fish from the banks with prettily-made rods, 
lines, and floats. Then there are the most ingenious 
basket-work traps of every size, and it is with these that 
the majority of the fish is caught. Also the mouth of — 
every narrow bay is netted, so that the fish in the dry 
season cannot escape, but fall easy victims to omnivorous 
man. 
Snares are made for birds, and the smaller mammals 
are not despised as food, rats cspecially beg sought for ; 
but they are chary of hunting large game. The hippo- 
potamus is occasionally pursued and harpooned, but more 
out of revenge for the mischief he wreaks on their canoes 
than from a liking for his flesh. The domestic animals 
of the natives also supply them with food, but they are ~ 
not so meat-eating as the tribes of Eastern or Southern — 
Africa, who possess their great herds of cattle. On the 
Upper Congo the ox is unknown, and his old classical — 
Bantu name, “Nombu,” or “Nombe,” is applied by the 
Ba-yansi to the buffalo, "The sheep is rarely met with 
beyond Stanley Pool; still it is known and named. It 
belongs to the Central African type—a hairy sheep, with 
small horns, and a magnificent mane in the ram, which 
